How to build a Volkswagen

The transparent factory.

See: http://www.youtube.com/embed/nd5WGLWNllA?rel=0

Question: How much German government money went it there car glass house?.

50startingagain asks:

>>How much German government money went it there car glass house?.>>

I wouldn't know.

My guess is none.

But that is a guess.

On the other hand they may have gotten some tax breaks from the City of Dresden.

That is actually quite a clever PR stunt by VW, for the factory is
clearly built to impress the public, its not built for highest
efficiency. Even Steven Meyer might now buy a VW :)

No doubt every tourist bus going through, will win new customers.

What they are really doing, is showing to the public, technology
that they are already using in other German factories, which most
people never get to see. Discovery Science regularly shows factory
tours of how things are made. Both BMW and Porche use very similar
technology, so do companies such as John Deere and others.

Most people simply don't understand the amount of technology that
is now employed in advanced manufacture. I gather that the Japanese
have a factory which makes robots, which essentially functions with
no humans present, 24/7.

So I don't think our screwdriver and hammer Australian manufacturing
will ever return. We'll land up specialising in various niches
involving value in the IP, which is where the money is. That will
really depend on skills of the entrepreneurs driving the change.
So what we really need is more smart entrepreneurs, but we are
hardly encouraging them.Its much easier in Australia to just open
another mine or build houses for more migrants.

Hi Yabby,

You wrote:

>>Most people simply don't understand the amount of technology that
is now employed in advanced manufacture.>>

That's really the point I was trying to make in this and my other thread, China! China! China!

It's all very well to complain about jobs that have been "lost" to China. The truth is that those jobs can never return. Exponentially improving manufacturing productivity means that manufacturing will never again provide the well-paying mass employment of yesteryear. We can produce more and more and with fewer and fewer people.

This provides a challenge for Australia but also for China. Their "low wage" model will soon have run its course. I think the Chinese leadership themselves understand this. I'm not so sure about Australian politicians.

*The truth is that those jobs can never return*

Well the truth is that most people don't think too deeply about this
stuff. But it would soon hit them, if they had to pay 10 Grand for
an Australian made computer. i think few consumers even realise,
how much that they benefit from the global economy.

OTOH, Rio have just announced that they need another 6000 workers
and are hiring now. That is just Rio, let alone the rest. If
China was not making things, she would not be buying all this
iron ore either and the price might not be 150$ a tonne but more
like 40$ a tonne. We don't realise how lucky we are to have
China.

I just saw an interview tonight on Bloomberg with the CEO of
Starbucks, which was interesting. They now have 15'000 Starbucks
globally and their highest margin market is in fact China!

People like Arjay still don't get it. So what if all those cheap
trinkets are made in China? Meantime he uses Google, uses American
software on his computer, watches American movies, drives past
a Big Mac, Kentucky Fried and all the rest every day. America
remains an innovative nation, whilst we are still going back to
the 60s with old fashioned union rules which are well past their
used by date.Perhaps we'll need a bit of pain one day, to learn.